Colorado Jim by George Goodchild

80 Pages·2021·0.55 MB·English

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Colorado Jim, by

George Goodchild

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Colorado Jim
Author: George Goodchild
Release Date: December 8, 2008 [eBook #27453]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLORADO JIM***

E-text prepared by Roger Frank

and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

(http://www.pgdp.net)

“Colorado Jim”

BY GEORGE GOODCHILD

A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York

Published by arrangement with W. J. Watt & Company

Printed in U. S. A.

Copyright, 1922, by

W. J. WATT & COMPANY

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
PAGE

I.
A SON OF THE WEST
1

II.
THE BRIGHT LIGHTS
14

III.
SOCIAL ADVANCEMENT
28

IV.
ANGELA
48

V.
FROST AND FIRE
69

VI.
THE GREAT AWAKENING
86

VII.
THE CLIMAX
100

VIII.
THE WHITE TRAIL
114

IX.
HIGH STAKES
127

X.
ANGELA MEETS A FRIEND
144

XI.
FRUITLESS TOIL
157

XII.
INTO THE WILDERNESS
171

XIII.
THE TERROR OF THE NORTH
186

XIV.
THE BREAKING-POINT
198

XV.
THE QUEST
208

XVI.
THE GREAT LIE
224

XVII.
A CHANGE OF FRONT
234

XVIII.
A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE
245

XIX.
THE CRISIS
258

XX.
COMPLICATIONS
268

XXI.
NATALIE TRIES HER LUCK
279

XXII.
GOLD
291

XXIII.
DEPARTURE
302

XXIV.
CONCLUSION
311

COLORADO JIM

CHAPTER I

A SON OF THE WEST

Out of the brooding darkness was born the first timid blush of the morn. It sprang to life along the serried edge of the
Medicine Bow, a broadening band of blood-red light. For one instant it seemed that some titan breath had blown at
the source, darkening the red to purple; and then, with startling suddenness, the whole wide range flamed up. The full
red rim of the sun smote aloft, sending the shades scuttling down the valleys, to vanish in thin air.
The man at the window of the Medicine Bow Hotel drew in his breath with a slight hissing sound, as the whole
magnificent landscape sprang into dazzling light. It had always taken him like that. He remembered the day when, as a
boy of seven, he had first seen the sun soar over the ridge, from the old “Prairie Schooner” encamped in “The Garden
of the Gods.” No less wonderful was it now; for Jim Conlan, late owner of Topeka Mine, and almost millionaire, was
but a magnified version of the boy of twenty-three years back. Time had brought its revenges, its rewards, its illusions;
but the great winds, the everlasting hills, and the wild life of the West had combined in cementing the early resolutions
and ideas.
He had won through by dint of muscle and hard thinking. He saw now that the secret of his success was
determination. He had earned a reputation for never letting go anything to which he had put his hand. Men feared him,
but loved him at the same time. He had proved himself to be a staunch friend but an implacable enemy. His six feet
three inches of bone and sinew was usually sufficient to scare off any trouble-seekers. Colorado Jim, as they called
him, was the product of primal Nature, unpolished, rough as the gaunt mountains of the Medicine Bow, and as
inscrutable.
All through the short summer night he had sat at the window waiting for the dawn. The man who never let go had let
go something this time, and that something was nothing less than his whole life. He never believed it would hurt him like
it did. For the past three years he had been restless. The soul and mind of him ached for expansion. The chief incentive
to work had gone. He had more money than he could spend—in the West. Yonder was New York, Paris, London.
Alluring visions of civilization flashed through his brain. What was the use of money if not to burn, and where in the

1

2

3

whole of Colorado could one burn money and get full value?
The idea to sell out began to obsess him, and in the end he sold. Hating sentimentality and fearing any demonstration
of such, he had packed up secretly and left the rough shack by the Topeka Mine for the comparatively Arcadian
comforts of the hotel in the township ten miles back. In a few hours he would be on the train bound for the East—and
the future.
Thorough in all things, he had packed his bags overnight, leaving but a few necessities such as razor and tooth-brush
(recent acquisitions) to complete. He left the window now with a curious sigh, and gave a last pull on the strap of the
largest bag with his big, muscular hands. Even now, with the ramshackle stage-coach almost at the door, he could not
bring himself to believe that the old life was over and done with. What the devil was he up to, anyway, hiking around
in creased trousers and black boots? Colorado Jim bound for Europe—London! It sounded impossibly fantastic. But
there it was, written on the labels of his bags—“James Conlan, London, via New York.” He tucked the rebellious
collars of his soft blue shirt into his waistcoat, and pulled out an enormous watch.
“Rob ain’t on time,” he muttered; then, “Emily!”
A voice that sounded like the action of a saw in contact with a nail came from below.
“Yeah?”
“My bill—quick!”
“But you ain’t had no breakfas’ yet.”
“Ain’t takin’ none. Come along right now and give a hand with these grips.”
The owner of the voice, a shriveled-up, extremely untidy girl of about eighteen, with her hair in “crackers” and her
eyes scarcely more than half open, entered the room, and stood gaping at him. She had gaped at him consistently for
two whole days, and he didn’t like it. He wasn’t used to women—didn’t understand them and didn’t want to. He
didn’t even understand that the romantic Emily had fallen passionately in love with him exactly forty seconds after her
sleepy eyes had first beheld him.
“For God’s sake don’t stare at me! Take the grips, gal, take ’em. Not that one, it would dislocate your internals.”
She dropped the big one like a hot brick and grabbed the two smaller ones. At the door she found opportunity to
scan him once more, and to murmur under her breath, “Lor’, ain’t he wonderful!” before her master came along and
ended her rapturous soliloquies. He entered the room and nodded to Jim.
“So you’re making out, Jim?”
“Looks like it.”
“Wal, I’m sure sorry, and there ain’t a guy in these parts who ain’t sorry too.”
Jim shrugged his big shoulders and jerked out his chin.
“Maybe there ain’t one more sorry than yours truly.”
“What!”
“Jest that.”
“It’s junk you’re talking.”
Jim smiled whimsically.
“Nope, it’s God’s truth. I didn’t figure it all out till I came here. I wish I hadn’t sold out. I guess I’m best fitted for
running mines or herding cattle, Dan. And I’m leaving all the boys who know me for those who don’t—and I don’t git
on with folks who don’t know me. God knows what persuaded me to sell to that macaroni-eating swab. But it’s
done, and there ain’t no manner of good wailing about it.”
Dan laughed lugubriously.
“A man that can knock a million out of a mountain can git along most anywheres, I guess. Wish I had your chance.”
“What’d you do?”
“I’d hitch up to some smart gal in New York or London and start a family.”
Jim made a grimace.
“’Pears to me you ain’t strong on originality. I’d rather run a cattle ranch—they don’t talk back.”
“Gosh! man, wimmen’s all right if you know how to treat ’em. They’re like bosses, they want careful breakin’ in.”
Jim shook his head. He remembered the time when a girl from down East, on a holiday tour, had looked over his
mine. Her eloquent blue eyes had made him feel decidedly sheepish. Colorado Jim, who had tackled most of the bad
men around Medicine Bow, and had tamed the wildest bronchos that ever roved prairie, was lamentably lacking
where the fair sex was concerned. He didn’t know what to do, what to say, or how to say it.
“Dan,” he said, “you hev to have a gift that way—an’ I ain’t got it.”
“My lad, you’ve got a figure and a ’physog’ that’ll sure turn every gal’s head that takes a slant at ’em.”

4

5

6

7

“Let up!” growled Jim.
“It’s honest truth, laddie. Gee! I gotta hankering for the bright lights myself. I lived in New York once. Some village.
And with a million in your wallet ... Ah!”
He gave a long sigh as he reflected upon the quantity of “bright lights” a million would purchase.
“I’d have three houses, a hundred suits, a footman with a powdered wig like I seen in the magazine pictures. I’d have
a bath each night in eau-de-Cologne, and go to roost in real silk peejamas. I’d larn to dance, and have a valee to
dress me and shave me....”
“Yep,” mused Jim, “and then you’d wake up, Dan. Here, where’s that bill? You talk too much. What in hell is that?”
A terrific hullabaloo came up from below. A roar of laughter and the babble of male voices was mixed with the rumble
of wheels and the pistol-like crack of a whip.
“Looks like a celebration,” said Dan.
Jim sauntered to the window. Underneath was Rob’s coach, packed full of miners. They slid from the roof of the
vehicle and from inside, and began to fire revolvers and dance around like niggers. Then one of them saw Jim.
“Hi, Colorado Jim, come out of that!” he bawled.
Jim ducked back from the window as a roar came up from below.
“Looks like they’re for giving you a send-off,” said Dan.
“Who told them? I kept it quiet—can’t stand ceremonies.”
“It must have been Rob.”
“Confound him! There’s no time for kissing. It’s fifty miles to Graymount, and the train is scheduled for noon. Send
’em away.”
Dan opened his eyes with horror at the suggestion.
“I ain’t takin’ risks. You got heaps of time. It’s only five o’clock and the road is good to Graymount.”
“More’n Rob’s hosses are. That off-side mare’s like a sausage on four crooked sticks.”
“Jim! We want Colorado Jim!” was howled up from below.
The much desired went to the window.
“Boys,” he bawled, “you all run along home. I gotta catch a train.”
His voice was drowned by horrible threats of what they would do if he didn’t hike down immediately. He turned to
Dan.
“They’re a darn fine lot of boys, but I wish they wouldn’t git so worked up. Where’s Emily?”
Emily, who was standing in the doorway, ogling him unseen, came forward.
“There’s something to buy a dress with, and see here, don’t get a draughtboard pattern. If there’s any money over,
buy soap—scented soap.”
Emily’s eyes almost fell from her head at the sight of the fifty-dollar note. She rubbed her hands down her dress and
took it. Jim had grabbed the heavy bag and was half-way down the stairs before she could summon enough breath to
murmur the incessant refrain, “Ain’t he jest wonderful!”
At the door Jim was grabbed by a dozen hefty pairs of hands and hoisted on to shoulders. One man took the big bag,
and with remarkable skill flung it clean on the top of the waiting coach, much to Rob’s disgust. The hurtling missile
came down like a thunderbolt, and nearly went through the roof.
“Don’t get fresh, boys,” pleaded Jim. “These are my Sunday clothes.”
They ran him twice up the main street, yelling and whooping like a pack of wild Indians. A queer awry figure stuck its
head from the window of a tumble-down shop and, seeing the cause of the disturbance, shook his fist and yelled:
“The sheriff ought to be fired, to allow ...”
A shot from a revolver shivered his shop-window to atoms, and a ten-dollar note was flung at him. He slammed down
the window, realizing that discretion was the better part of valor. The high-spirited men went on their way, rousing the
whole population as they progressed. After about twenty minutes of these capers they reached the hotel again. Jim
was praying that the business was over. He fought his way to the ground, but was immediately hoisted on to the top of
Rob’s coach.
“Give over, boys ...”
“Who is the whitest man in Medicine Bow?” sang Ned Blossom.
“Colorado Jim!” howled the chorus.
“Who is the huskiest two-hundred-pounder in the hul of Ameriky?”

8

9

10

11

12

“Colorado Jim!”
“Who is it the gals all lu-huv?”
“Colorado Jim—sure!”
Jim swung his big figure over the side of the coach. He grabbed two of his tormentors by the scruffs of their necks and
jerked them on to the ground.
“I’m through with all this,” he cried. “Rob, get that animated bunch of horse-hair going.”
Ned Blossom held up his hand.
“Cut it out, boys,” he ordered. “See here, Jim, we got wise to this absconsion of yours, and we thought we’d jest
bunch in. The boys are feeling queer about it, though there ain’t much show of handkerchiefs. We—we thought
mebbe you’d accept a little—kinder keepsake. It—it ain’t much, but—but—— Wal, here it is.”
He jerked something from his pocket and put it into Jim’s hand. It was a gold cigarette-case, with an inscription
worked in small diamonds: “To Colorado Jim from his chums.” Jim stood gazing at this token of their regard. He hated
sentiment, and yet was as big a victim of it as anyone. When he spoke his great voice wavered.
“I’m going a hell of a distance before I find boys like you. I wish I wasn’t going. I—wish——”
He grabbed Ned’s hand quickly, and then that of each of the other men, and jumped into the coach. They understood
the emotion in the big heart of him. Rob started the team and away went the coach in a cloud of dust. Hats went up in
the air and revolvers barked.
“Good-bye, Colorado Jim! Good-bye!”
Emily at the door, clasping the fifty-dollar note in her grimy paw, waited until the coach was a mere dot in the distance.
Then she rubbed a sorrowful eye.
“Gee, but he was jest wonderful!” she moaned.

CHAPTER II

THE BRIGHT LIGHTS

New York brought Jim Conlan up with a start. Everything was amazing; everything was bewildering. He felt like a lost
soul, stunned with the noise, dazed by the sights. In the fastnesses of his beloved West he had never imagined that
such a place existed on the face of the earth. He felt stifled and ill at ease. His clothes were different to those worn in
this city. People gave him a quick passing glance, knowing him at once for a Westerner. Feeling a trifle embarrassed
under their glances, he reflected upon the advisability of buying new and more appropriate garb. A tailor was
requisitioned and, finding his client to be indifferent in the matter of costs, fixed him up with a fine wardrobe—and a
fine bill.
Jim spent the best part of two hours trying on the new things. The long mirror in his bedroom did its best, but it wasn’t
good enough for Jim. He groaned as he saw this stranger staring at him from the mirror. He wasn’t built for that sort of
garb. The hard hat looked perfectly idiotic and the starched collars nearly choked him. Eventually he tore the offending
article from his sunscorched neck and flung it across the room. The other things followed. He stood once more in the
rough gray clothes that served for “best” out West, and jammed the comfortable Stetson hat on his head.
“I’m darned if I’ll wear ’em!” he growled.
A few days of shopping and theaters, and he began to grow homesick. Thoughts of Colorado and the boys constantly
flickered in his brain. Here he was an outcast—a nonentity. He was not good at making friends, and the New Yorkers
were not falling head over heels to shake hands with him, though more than one pair of eyes looked admiringly at his
magnificent physique.
The loneliness of big cities! How terrible a thing it was. Never at any time had Jim felt so lonely. The rolling wind-
swept prairie had at least something to offer. In every manifestation of nature he had found a friend. The wind, and the
hills, and the wild animals seemed in some queer way sterling comrades; but here—— He began to hate it. It was one
huge problem to him. How did it live? What did all the millions do for a subsistence? It was the first time he had seen
the poor—the real, hopeless, inevitable poor. He had seen men “broke,” down to their last cent; men on the trail,
starving, and lost to all sense of decency. But that was merely transitory. These people were different; they were born
poor, and would be poor until their bones were laid in some miserable congested cemetery. He found them actually
reconciled to it—unquestioningly accepting their fate and fighting to postpone the end for as long as possible. It
sickened him.

13

14

15

16

Oh, Colorado! With your wide prairie and your eternal peaks, your carpeted valleys and your crystalline streams,
your fragrant winds and your gift of God—good men!
He was sitting in the lounge of his hotel one evening, feeling more than usually homesick, when he noticed a beautiful
woman sitting near him. Her evening dress was cut well away at the shoulders, displaying a white neck around which a
pearl necklace glowed in the light. A mass of auburn hair was coiled up neatly round her head, with a rebellious little
curl streaming down one ear.
The curl fascinated Jim. He thought it ought to be put back in its proper place, but a second’s reflection revealed to
him the fact that it was intended to trickle thus alluringly. It was there for effect. It enhanced her considerable charm. In
the midst of his interested survey she turned and caught his eye. He began to study his boots with an embarrassed
blush. When he ultimately stole another glance at this wealth of feminine beauty he found she was busily engaged in
similar scrutiny—of himself. They both smiled. Then she stood up, languidly, and came across to him.
“Pardon me, but you are from the West, aren’t you?”
“Right first time.”
“Ah, I thought so. You Westerners can’t disguise yourselves. I love the West. I was born in Wyoming.”
Here at last was a sympathetic soul. Jim edged along a little. She sat down.
“You don’t like New York?” she queried.
“I don’t,” he replied emphatically. “It leaves me gasping for breath.”
She nodded.
“I felt like that when first I came down. I wish I were you to be going back again.”
Jim laughed.
“But I’m not going back.”
She opened her brilliant eyes and then laughed.
“I know. You’ve made a pile and are now seeing life. Is that it?”
“Something like that.”
“I knew it.”
Jim was getting his nerve back. It was the first time he had been in close proximity to a powdered back and rouged
lips, and the sensation was curious. No man with blood in his veins could help admiring the soft lines of her neck and
arms—and Jim had plenty of blood about him.
“Where’d you say you hailed from?” he queried.
“Rock Springs, Wyoming. D’you know it?”
“Know it? I should say! Wal, if that ain’t the pink limit!”
“We ran a ranch there,” she went on in a rich musical voice. “I wish I was there now, but there’s a spell about cities.
You’ll find that out soon enough.”
“I ain’t seen much spell about this one,” retorted Jim. “Gee! I’ve never seen such a bunch of blank-mangy-looking
men. The wimmen ain’t so bad.”
She laughed.
“Thank you!”
“And cyards! Suffering Moses! I seen a guy deal a straight flush to himself and no one savvied he’d got the pack
sandpapered. Out in Medicine Bow he’d hev’ bin filled up with lead to his shoulder-blades. I guess this is a darn bad
place.”
“You’re lovely!” she said merrily. “But when in Rome, do as Rome does. Do you go to dinner in that rig-out?”
Jim felt nervously at his throat.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing. It suits you admirably. But the hotel won’t like it.”
“See here,” he retorted, “I don’t give a tinker’s cuss what the hotel likes. Anyway, it’s decent, which is considerably
more’n some of the dresses I’ve seen. There’s a gal with nothin’ more’n a bit of muslin she could fold up and put in
her mouth. She’s got Mother Eve beaten to a frazzle.”
They gossiped for half an hour, and then Edith (he heard a friend call her by that name) left him and went to dinner.
The next meeting happened on the following day. Edith’s company appealed to him. She certainly used a lot of
“make-up,” and creams that smelt like a chemist’s shop; but all New York smelt vile to Jim, so he didn’t complain.
Taking his courage in both hands, he invited her to dine with him. She accepted with as much eagerness as maidenly
modesty would permit, and Jim went off to lunch in the best hotel in town, to take careful note of the proper

17

18

19

20

procedure of a gentleman “standing treat” to a lady. He got it off fairly well, making notes on a sheet of paper. Then he
went to his room and rehearsed it all. He started dressing himself about five o’clock, and had nearly got his clothes to
his satisfaction by the appointed time—seven-thirty.
The dinner was a roaring success. Conversation was feeble because all his time was taken up in observing correct
decorum. Edith sat and regarded him with curious eyes. She wondered, for good reasons, what the emotions of such
a man might be. Behind those quiet, simple eyes of his there occasionally flashed something that made her afraid—
dreadfully afraid. She had not wasted time that day. She knew this big, uncultured fellow was James Conlan, late of
Topeka Mine—a millionaire.
Jim breathed a huge sigh of relief when they left the dining-hall and walked through the lounge into the wide balcony.
He was standing looking out over the street when he noticed her totter and clutch a chair.
“What’s wrong?” he gasped.
“I—I feel faint. I——”
She closed her eyes. Here was a situation that had not been rehearsed by Jim. He wondered whether he ought to ring
the fire alarm or call the police. Edith solved the problem.
“If—you will assist me—to the elevator——”
He had never thought of that. He grabbed her arm and helped her to the elevator. She still looked pale and distressed.
“Fourteenth floor. No. 633!” she murmured.
They left the elevator at the fourteenth floor. No sooner had the lift disappeared than Edith collapsed on the floor. He
looked round for a friend in need, but the corridor was deserted. The door near at hand was numbered 630. So 633
must be near by! He stooped and picked up the still figure as though she were a child. In half a dozen strides he was
at 633. The door was unlocked, so he pushed it open and entered. He found the electric-light switch, and then placed
his burden gently on the bed. He was drawing his arm from under her when she opened her eyes.
“Water!”
He searched and found a water decanter and a glass. She seemed too weak to sit up, so he helped her by placing one
arm under her head. She sipped the liquid and looked into his eyes. Then to his utter amazement she clasped both her
arms round his neck and pulled his face close to hers.
“Hell!” he muttered.
“I love you!” she said. “Don’t you see I——”
“Say, you’re bad!” he said. “Drink some more water——”
He strove to free himself, but finding he could only do so by hurting her, refrained, and tried to bring her to her senses.
Undoubtedly she had suddenly gone mad! The ingenuous Jim could find no other solution. He was telling her to “be a
good kid” and not “to get fresh,” when the door opened and slammed. He looked round to find a tall dark man, in
evening dress, surveying him fiercely.
“Good-evening,” said the stranger cuttingly. Jim broke away and faced the latter.
“Who in hell are you?”
“Ask her.”
Jim turned to Edith. She seemed strangely perturbed.
“My—my husband!”
“Wal, I’m glad to meet you,” said Jim coolly. “Your wife had a fit or something, so I jest brought her along. I guess I’ll
be mushing.”
To his amazement the man barred his path.
“A nice story,” he said.
The eyes of Colorado Jim narrowed to the merest slits. He turned to the woman.
“Tell him!” he growled.
She shrunk before those terrible eyes of his, and gripped the pillow with nerveless hands. Her lips opened but she said
nothing. Jim started, and then caught her by the shoulder.
“Did you git me? He’s wanting to know why I’m here. Tell him.”
“How can I tell him?” she wailed.
The man laughed.
“You needn’t waste breath. So this is how Mr. James Conlan spends his time. It’ll make a fine story....”
Jim’s brain was working fast; but he was slow in the uptake in such circumstances as this. The woman had seemed so
genuine. Why did she maintain silence? It was a novel experience in his life. All the ways of this strange city were
foreign to him.

21

22

23

24

The man’s voice broke in:
“A fine story it will make in the press.”
“Eh——!”
“The morals of a millionaire.”
“Eh!” growled Jim again.
“Maybe you wouldn’t like this to appear in print?...”
And then Jim saw it all. It was like a story from a magazine. He had never believed those things could be true. But
here it was in real life. A frame-up—a dirty piece of blackmail.
“Can’t we come to terms, Mr. Conlan....”
The suave voice got no farther than that. He saw six-feet-odd of bone and muscle rear up like a piece of steel and
descend on him. A great hard hand caught him by the neck and bounced him up and down the room.
“You swab! You tinhorn! I’ve manured a potato patch with better stuff, by Gawd! And she’s your wife, you dirty
trash! She ain’t your wife—no, sir. I savvy what she is. Suffering rattlesnakes! I’m waitin’ to hear about it. When did
you frame to put this over me? Talk up or I’ll yank you outer the window into the street.”
“Damn you—let me go!”
“I’ll ’damn you,’ you muck! Take that!”
A resounding slap sounded as a hand like leather met the man’s face. Edith screamed.
“Talk up!”
“We—arranged—it—this afternoon,” gasped the man.
Jim flung him to the floor and advanced on the pallid Edith. She retreated before him. He was about to clasp her when
a voice rang out.
“Hands up!”
He swung round to find his late victim brandishing a revolver. An ugly leer crossed his face. He evidently meant
business. Jim stared at the revolver.
“Put ’em up or I’ll drill you. I can plead the unwritten law. I’ve got you now, my buck-jumping desperado.”
Jim coolly blew his nose.
“Put ’em up!”
He put up his hands and dropped the handkerchief. He stooped to pick up the latter and, with a lightning movement,
caught the edge of the mat and pulled with all his strength. The man, standing on the end of it, came to earth with a
crash. Jim flew at him and made for the hand that held the gun. Over and over they went like cats. Then it was that
Edith lent a hand—to her confederate. She ran to the dressing-table and took up a small penknife. Jim was leaning
over his victim, wresting the gun from his hand, when she reached him. The knife came down twice in his shoulder.
The intense pain caused him to drop the gun, but he picked it up again, hurled his inert opponent across the room, and
went to Edith. The knife dropped from her fingers as she saw the blood streaming down his white shirtfront.
“I don’t fight wimmen,” he growled. “There ain’t nothing I can do to you, ’cept this.”
He suddenly caught her and, holding both her wrists in one hand, with the other tore every shred of clothing from
her.... Then without a word he strode out of the room.
“I’m through with this place,” he muttered. “Bright lights! Gosh, I’m looking for where they don’t shine so strong.”
Somewhere in England were the graves of his ancestors. He didn’t want to see the graves of his forefathers, even if he
could find them, but the desire to give London the “once over” was now stronger than ever. The next day he booked
a steamer berth and packed his bags.

CHAPTER III

SOCIAL ADVANCEMENT

Jim’s first impression of London was an ocean of flying mud, through which myriads of phantasmagorial creatures and
things moved in sullen, unceasing procession; an all-enveloping wall of brown fog; and a roar like unto some monster
in pain. When he stood on the Embankment and strove to get a glimpse of the river, he came to the conclusion that

25

26

27

28

“the hub of the Universe” was not up to specification. The famous Strand amazed him by its narrowness and its
shortness. The buildings were dirtier than any buildings he had ever seen before, and the people cold, self-contained,
units who seemed visibly to shrink back into their shells at his every attempt to hold conversation.
For a whole week the fog and the drizzle continued as though no sun existed, or ever could exist. He wandered
aimlessly, like a lost sheep, wondering how long a man could swallow quarts of dirt with his oxygen without getting
permanently transformed into a human sewer.
But he was getting a grip on things. His brain was gradually adapting itself to changed conditions. No longer did he
gasp when a child in Stepney picked up orange-peel from the gutter and ate it. Here was the unending manifestation of
Nature’s inexorable law, the survival of the fittest, more clearly and cruelly displayed than in New York. Wealth and
Poverty were more definitely marked. If they merged at all, it was away in the suburbs, or in the Jewish quarter,
whence issued, on Saturdays, thousands of dark-skinned lads and girls, westward bound, to spend one hectic evening
in the pleasure-ground west of St. Paul’s.
The East End, strangely enough, appealed to him more than the West. He took expeditions down among the docks,
and sat in squalid public-houses listening to the coarse conversation of their habitués. There was always something
new to shock, or interest, the eyes. It was no strange thing to find a woman performing certain domestic avocations
before a pot of beer. Some of them brought potatoes and peas, peeling and shelling these in the bar in preference to
the hovels which they inhabited. The “pub” was their club and general meeting-house.
Once he managed to get into conversation with one of these products of “the hub of the Universe.” Her point of view
staggered him. Her meek acceptance of her lot sickened him. Why didn’t she fly—she and her man—away to green
fields and fresh air, away from this plague-ridden, dismal city? The suggestion brought from her a peal of mirthless
laughter. Later he arrived at the truth. These people suffered from the greatest disease of all—The Fear of Living.
Their hearts were rotten. They lived and died, rooted to some few acres of mud and muck because they feared what
lay beyond. Like children they feared the unknown. Daylight lay beyond the jungle, but they believed it to be the pit of
doom—of empty stomachs and endless tribulation.
Nothing could be done for them until the system was smashed. Unsophisticated, uncultured as he was, he succeeded
in grasping the root of the problem—Education. They were living a lie. The very environment conspired to perpetuate
that lie. When one among them stood up and averred that Life meant something more than this, that Man was not
made to eke out his life in bitter misery, that the result of the toil of the worker was filched by some inexplicable
process, he was immediately voted “balmy.” They were not ripe for fighting. There was as yet no clearly seen Cause
that would rouse them from their torpor. But one day the flood would burst the dam of besotted ignorance, and the
human cataract would descend with appalling force.
Colorado Jim, born out of Nature, succored by the sweet winds of heaven, was learning things. When at nights he
stood at his window, at the top of the hotel, and gazed over the vastness of this squat monster, London, Colorado
seemed very far away.
Hitherto he had been a poor reader; he had had no time for books. Now a book came into his hands. Feeling lonely,
he dipped into it. It was Reade’s “Martyrdom of Man.” All night long he sat and read. All the civilizations of earth
passed before him in perspective. It gave him a new interest in life. He wanted to go out and take this London by the
throat. It was a mockery of what civilization should be. It was an insult to dead generations of men. Man had fought
and suffered and died for—this! Humanity had labored for tens of centuries to give birth to—this!
But his healthy mind recoiled from morbid speculation. He took a trip into Devonshire, and found there a
recrudescence of the old calm joyousness that he believed had somehow left him. He roved the Devon hills in wind
and rain, drew into his lungs the fragrant breath of the moorland, and felt a better man. He sang as he walked—a great
deep song that went echoing along the valleys. Space—space! There was the magic potion. What were Money,
Success, Power, compared to the free delights of Nature?
On his return to London he seriously reflected upon the advisability of going back to Medicine Bow. Man is a
gregarious animal, and Jim was feeling the need of friends. What envy was his when he perceived little groups of
friends, gathered together around some table, laughing and making merry! He had found the big London clubs
astonishingly exclusive. A man had to be proposed and seconded, and what not, by existing members, who had to
vouch for his moral or social standing. Jim felt an outsider; an alien among strange people, whose ways were not his
ways. It might have been Colorado for him but for a totally unexpected occurrence.
He was returning from a trip to the Crystal Palace, and was waiting on the railway platform for his train, when a
drunken man started a commotion a few paces from him. Exhibiting signs of violence, two porters came forward to
remove him. That was, apparently, exactly what he wanted. He slipped off his coat and danced round in ungainly
fashion. The porters advanced. He lunged out and caught the foremost man a heavy blow under the chin. The man
reeled back and collided violently with an immaculately dressed man who was standing on the edge of the platform.
The latter staggered, lost his balance, and fell on to the line. A frenzied voice screamed:
“Oh, my God, the train!”
The locomotive arrived with a roar. The man on the line tried to rise, but the sight of the approaching doom paralyzed
him. Women shrieked and men stood rooted to the spot. No one saw the big form of Jim descend like a thunderbolt
on the back of the terrified man. An instant later the engine passed over them....

29

30

31

32

33

34

Underneath the moving mass Jim’s fourteen stone of human tissue was pressed close to the form beneath him. He was
scarcely conscious of taking the leap. His brain had yelled one distinct order to his active limbs: “Keep him down flat!”
He had obeyed that subconsciously. For a second or so it was pure oblivion, and then he realized what had
happened. If there should not be enough clearance?... Any considerable projection would mean....
But something happened which drove the specter of fear away. There came a sharp pain in his back. It grew to
intense torture. A small, red-hot cinder from the engine was eating into his flesh. He wanted to raise his head, to put
out his arm and remove this merciless thing. But Will prevailed. The pain grew less. The roar ceased. He realized that
the train had stopped. He could hear the excited murmur of voices. Everyone seemed to be talking at once.
“There’s another there—that big man. I tell you....”
“Mary, come away....”
“It went right over him. Oh, poor fellow!...”
“The big man was holding him down. They’re safe, I tell you.”
A quavering male voice—that of the guard—came down through the space between the platform and the footboard
of the train.
“Hel-lo, down there!”
“Yank your darned train out. There’s a cinder half-way through my back,” growled Jim.
Shouts were heard and the train began to move. It seemed an eternity before the last coach passed over them. By that
time the cinder had grown cold. Jim kneeled up and gasped. He caught the other man in his arms and climbed on to
the platform. The crowd rushed forward to shake him by the hand. He could have kissed any woman there without
asking, but it never occurred to him. His one idea was to get away from this hand-shaking crowd. He made for the
waiting-room, still carrying his man.
“For Gawd’s sake keep that crush out,” he begged of the station-master. The latter carried out this difficult task with
ultimate success. When he came back the immaculate one had recovered his senses. He was still suffering from shock,
but he found enough strength to wedge a monocle into his eye and to survey Jim, wonderingly.
“Great Scott—what a feat!” he exclaimed.
Jim was rubbing his injured back.
“My deah fellah, it was positively superhuman! You saved my life—what!”
“Oh, that’s all right.”
“Bai Jove, I should think so! It was positively and indubitably the most courageous thing I have ever seen or read of.”
His cultured lisping speech and his well-bred air interested Jim. Here was one of the upper ten thousand, the real
flower of British aristocracy. Jim’s eyes traveled over him, noting the cut of his clothes and his general air of careless
lassitude. It had taken ten generations to produce that finished article, and the man from the “Wilds” wondered what
was the real nature of the animal. Physically he was a degenerate. His hands were long and tapered, and his limbs
were exceeding small. But he possessed grace of movement. Jim felt a sneaking admiration for the hundred-and-one
little tricks of movement that characterized the Immaculate One. But was it only veneer? Were these polished
externals without inward counterpart? In the meantime the Immaculate One had taken stock of his saviour. He found
much to admire in this amazing giant, with swells of muscle outlined behind the cloth that covered it. No man of his set
could have done what this man had done. Sensitiveness, Culture, seemed to negate spontaneity of action. Reason had
usurped the throne of Will. Colorado Jim only reasoned in his immature fashion. He acted without reason, on the
impulse of the moment. Impulse had its advantages. Had he stopped to reason, the Immaculate One would have soon
been the object of a Coroner’s jury. Jim found the slim white hand extended towards him. He shook it.
“I should—ah—like to know to whom I am indebted?”
“Jim Conlan, but it don’t matter a cuss.”
“It matters a great deal—to me. I should like to give you my card.”
He produced a gold card-case and extracted a thin piece of paste-board. Jim scanned it: Alfred Cholmondeley,
Huntingdon Club.
“I gather you are not the sort of fellah who loves a torrent of oral thanks,” drawled Cholmondeley; “but if at any time I
can be of the slightest service to you, you have only to command me.”
It was then that an inspiration came to Jim. He scanned the card again.
“Say, you mean that?”
“Try me.”
“Wal, if you’d like to balance the account good and proper, git me into this yere club.”
Cholmondeley stared, and coughed.
“It’s—ah—it’s a deuced expensive club.”

35

36

37

38

Jim’s face relaxed.
“I guess I can stand the pace.”
Cholmondeley was at his wits’ end. Of all the impossible things on earth Jim had asked the most impossible. The
Huntingdon was the doyen of London clubs; its titled members could have filled a very large volume. And here was
this primal man of the wilderness seeking admission!
“It don’t matter,” said Jim, with a curl of his lip.
Cholmondeley set his teeth.
“I’ll do it,” he said. “It’s going to be demned difficult, but it shall be done. What’s your address?”
“Hotel Cecil.”
“Count it as done.”
The great feat was ultimately achieved. Jim received notification to the effect that he was now a member on probation.
By pre-arrangement with the Immaculate One he turned up one morning at the big building in Pall Mall.
Cholmondeley, who met him in the vestibule, nearly had a fit when he saw him. He had tacitly thrown out a hint that
the Huntingdon was correct in the matter of dress—and Jim turned up in his usual garb.
The wind was knocked clean out of Jim’s sails by the commissionaire’s greeting to Cholmondeley, “Morning, your
Lordship.”
“What did that guy say?” he exclaimed.
“I forgot to tell you I’m a Viscount,” replied Cholmondeley.
“Gee, what’s that?”
“It’s a title conferred on one of my ancestors for something he did for his king. But it’s not of the least importance.”
Jim felt nervous. He wished he might have fallen through the earth before suggesting that he should become a member
of a club of this sort. Cholmondeley was mildly amused. He had fought tooth and nail against the prejudices of some
of the blue bloods, who had never heard of James Conlan in their lives and had looked him up in Burke in vain.
Cholmondeley, half-way through his adventure, was beginning to enjoy it. He had come to like Jim immensely, though
the latter’s speech at times wounded his tender susceptibilities.
“My deah fellah, we have a stormy—ah—passage to weather. If I may be allowed to tender a little advice, don’t talk
too much—yet.”
Jim’s brows clouded.
“I get you. They won’t like my kind of chin-music?”
“They certainly will not. Let us now have a drink to celebrate this extraordinary occasion.”
They were sitting in the lounge when a boy came in with a telegram.
“Lord ‘Chum-ley’!” he yelled.
He eventually spotted Cholmondeley and gave him the telegram. Jim’s eyes opened wide.
“Say, that ain’t your name, is it?”
Cholmondeley nodded.
“Wal, if that don’t beat the band!”
A man that could make “Chumley” out of Cholmondeley was certainly a juggler with letters.
“Why in hell do you spell it that way?”
“Euphony, my deah chap—euphony!”
Who “Euphony” might have been Jim hadn’t the foggiest notion. He relapsed into a moody silence, wishing the club at
the bottom of the sea and himself back at Medicine Bow, where men pronounced words in the way they were spelt—
more or less.
Jim’s career in that club was anything but smooth. Under the wing of Cholmondeley he was saved from absolute
ostracism. Two weeks of utter purgatory were lived through, but Cholmondeley was staunch. Every day he turned up
at the club and bade Jim, on peril of his life, do likewise.
“Stick it out, Conlan,” he argued. “They’re expecting you to run away and die with humiliation. When they discover
you are not a—what was the word you used?—ah—quitter—they’ll begin to appreciate you.”
Jim hung on. Even when Cholmondeley was not present he used the club. His personality began to have effect, and he
soon made two or three firm friends. One of these was the Honorable Claude Featherstone, a healthy, good-looking
youth, without a trace of snobbishness or social pride in his composition. He had been the first to come to Jim with
extended hand.
“You’re American, aren’t you?”

39

40

41

42

“Nope, I’m English all right, but America’s my country.”
Claude’s eyes traveled over Jim’s muscular figure.
“Ye gods! they breed ’em big where you come from. I don’t think I’ll try catch-as-catch-can with you. What do you
think of this menagerie of ours? That fat man over there is the Duke of Aberdale. If he comes and tells you a tale
about having left his purse at home—beware!”
Claude’s acquaintanceship ripened into intimate friendship. It may have been pure hero-worship, but the fact remained
that he thought Jim the finest specimen of manhood he had ever known. Jim, on the other hand, began to drop a few
of his early prejudices. He came to realize that all men have something in common, and that accident of birth placed no
insuperable bar between one and another. Once penetrate that icy reserve, and more often than not there was a stout
heart behind it.
Jim began to get popular. It was rumored he was fabulously wealthy—a slight exaggeration—and this helped him
through, for the money-worship fetish prevailed even among “noble lords.” Cholmondeley, who knew all the ropes in
this intricate mesh of British social life, intimated that a peerage might be bought for £50,000. But Jim wasn’t “taking
any of that dope.”
“It won’t make my blood any bluer, I guess,” he said.
In two months he had thoroughly established himself—a plebeian had taken root in a forest of belted earls and lisping
aristocrats. But it stopped at that. A retired “cowboy” was all very well in a club. If he chose to take up “gun-
throwing” or garrotting, there was always a score or two of hefty servants to deal with him; but in a man’s home, with
wives and daughters present, well——! So Jim’s meteoric social ascent went no farther than that. Even
Cholmondeley, who was his eternal debtor, never took him to house parties. Jim had introspection enough to see the
barrier.
It was towards the end of winter that Jim created a commotion which was nearly the cause of his being “blackballed.”
But for the intervention of his considerable circle of admirers, who believed his action to be justified, and threatened to
resign en bloc if the matter were not quashed, Jim would have shaken the dust of the Huntingdon from his feet.
It was in the afternoon, and a trio of men were seeking for a fourth to make up a card party. Seeing Jim lounging on a
settee they invited him to join in. He rather reluctantly assented, for one of the players was Meredith, a man he disliked
intensely, which dislike was thoroughly reciprocated.
They played all the afternoon, and Meredith won steadily. He talked a lot about his abnormal luck, but one man
present seemed to be constantly on the fidget. Jim had been weaned on cards in a place where gambling was the salt
of life, and “tinhorns” were as plentiful as mosquitoes in summer. He kept his eyes on the slim, nimble hands of
Meredith, and what he saw did not please him.
Meredith was in the middle of a deal when Jim suddenly flung his cards across the table and stood up.
“I’m through with this,” he growled.
The other players gasped, and Meredith’s brow contracted. By this time the room was full of members lounging and
talking before dinner. The tone of Jim’s voice suggested that something was wrong.
“What’s the matter?” asked one of the players.
“I don’t like the deal.”
Meredith leaped from his chair.
“Do you dare insinuate....”
“I don’t insinuate nothin’. I jest ain’t playin’ this hand.”
Claude came behind him.
“Careful, Jim,” he whispered. “You are making a very serious accusation.”
Meredith came across and stood within a foot of Jim’s taut face.
“Mr. Conlan,” he said, “I am waiting for an explanation.”
“Where I come from,” said Jim grimly, “men who slip cards that way are lynched on the nearest tree.”
A gasp came from the company. Never in the history of the club had anything like that happened.
“You liar!” snapped Meredith.
Jim’s hand came out. His fingers buried themselves in Meredith’s shoulder, till the pale face winced with pain. His
great body tightened up and his eyes were like cold steel. No one had ever called him “liar” before. It aroused all the
innate fury within him. The other hand was drawn back to strike—and then he remembered. He gave an almost pitiful
grunt and released his grip. Cholmondeley and a few others dragged him away.
“Conlan,” said Claude, “you oughtn’t to have said that. It isn’t done.”
“There’s no way out,” whispered Cholmondeley. “You’ll have to apologize.”
A dapper little man, a bosom friend of Meredith’s, hurried forward, bristling with indignation.

43

44

45

46

47

“You have grossly insulted a member of this club, sir. We demand an apology,” he said.
“Better apologize,” whispered Claude.
Jim was trying to be a “gentleman,” but the word “liar” from the lips of a card-sharp had pierced the thin veneer that a
few months of sophisticated environment had brought about, and scratched into the coarser material beneath.
Restraint went to the winds.
“Apologize!” he roared. “Apologize to a swindling tinhorn? I should smile!”

CHAPTER IV

ANGELA

The Featherstones were a remarkable family—remarkable in their unparalleled irresponsibility. They had a house in
Grosvenor Place and another in Devonshire. The latter, like the Featherstones, was gorgeous in its external aspect, but
thoroughly unstable in its foundations. The instability of Lord Featherstone was of a financial character. He, like the
rest of his family, believed in giving a wide berth to such sordid considerations as money. Whenever he wanted money
he called in the family solicitor, who promptly raised another mortgage on something.
Featherstone was so used to signing his name on pieces of paper that custom grew into habit. Lady Featherstone still
gave expensive house parties, and the Honorable Angela acted as though all the wealth of the Indies was behind those
magic signatures of papa.
Young Claude, with a liberal allowance per annum, managed to wring a few thousands overdraft from his banker by
dint of a plausible tongue and a charm of manner. When the crash came and Featherstone was forced to face realities,
the house was like a mortuary.
“But surely you can raise the wind, my dear Ayscough?”
The aged solicitor, an intimate friend of the family, shook his head.
“There’s Little Badholme.”
“Mortgaged to the last penny. It was never worth the ten thousand they advanced.”
Featherstone paced up and down and blew rings of smoke into the air.
“We shall have to economize, my dear Ayscough. We shall have to economize.”
He had said that so many times before, that like the production of his autograph it had become a habit. Ayscough,
seeing Carey Street looming in the distance, was unusually glum. Economy was scarcely an antidote at this stage, for
mortgagees were threatening foreclosure.
“I rely upon you, Ayscough. I rely on you absolutely.”
Ayscough looked blank. It was no use trying to explain to Featherstone the exact state of the family’s finance.
Generations of Featherstones had eaten well into the coffers. Prodigality was their outstanding characteristic.
“If I might make a suggestion——”
Featherstone was in the mood to consider the wildest suggestion. He had none of his own.
“There is—er—Miss Angela.”
“There is, Ayscough. Precisely—there is.” Then he suddenly halted and looked at the lawyer. “By Jove! I see your
point. But it won’t avail us. Angela is a queer girl. She has distinct aversions to marriage.”
“But if she knew that a wealthy—er—fortunate marriage would save you and Lady Featherstone a certain amount of
anxiety——?”
“I doubt it. Besides, wealthy husbands are not so easily picked up. There are a dozen girls after every man of ample
means. No, I think we may discard that possibility. Think it over, my dear Ayscough. I leave it entirely in your hands.”
Ayscough had been thinking it over for the last three years. He went away with visions of the fall of the house of
Featherstone at no very distan...